About PowerUp Legal

PowerUp Legal is an online marketplace delivering on-demand energy counsel to in-house counsel and law firms requiring project-based or temporary support on energy matters. All of our lawyers have at least five years of law practice and substantive expertise in energy regulatory, litigation, compliance and/or transactional work.

All of our lawyers are accomplished practitioners with at least five years of law practice and substantive expertise in regulatory, litigation, compliance and/or transactional work in the energy sector.

PowerUp Legal is not a law firm or a legal referral service. Instead, we are part of the growing category of alternative legal services providers that leverage technology and the zeitgeist of the “gig” economy to provide cost-effective, high quality attorneys that you pay for only when you need them, and not when you don’t. Although similar business models exist, PowerUp Legal is the only platform dedicated exclusively to serving the energy sector.

About the Founder

PowerUp Legal’s founder and CEO, Carolyn Elefant is a veteran energy regulatory attorney. Carolyn has over 25 years of experience, first as an attorney advisor at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), then at several large law firms and boutique energy practices in Washington D.C., and since 1994 as principal attorney of her own firm. Since 2011, Carolyn has been routinely listed as a Super Lawyer in energy and natural resources law in Washington D.C. – one of just two small firms on a list comprised of large firms – and is regularly quoted in trade press publications.

The concept of PowerUp Legal grew out of Carolyn’s experience in her own practice and her observation of changing trends in the practice of law. While there are a myriad of services (Axiom Legal, Hire an Esquire, Bliss Legal) that provide short-term, project based legal services for general corporate and litigation matters, no comparable services focus specifically on the energy industry. At a time when general counsel at utility companies face strong pressure to control legal budgets, and when new start-ups demand access to experienced counsel to help them navigate the regulatory process, there are few options other than hiring and training in-house law firms or retaining a large firm with sky-high billing rates. Moreover, because many large firms that handle energy matters for clients also represent them in other matters, clients are often forced to sign advance conflict waivers that are not necessarily in their best interest.

Enter PowerUp Legal. By aggregating experienced energy lawyers from all over the country and eliminating the bloated overhead of many law firms, PowerUp Legal can offer quality service for a fraction of a large firm’s cost. PowerUp Legal also affords access to experienced practitioners with different substantive competencies, so firms can pinpoint the lawyers who can address their specific needs.